Violin News & Gossip, Op. 3, No. 74

September 17, 2007 at 1:45 AM

9/16/07 – Violinist Celeste Golden, 2006 Bronze Medalist of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, will perform with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. The IVCI newsletter informs us that “Celeste spent the summer at the Marlboro Festival, a chamber music festival in Vermont, where she worked with some of the biggest names in the chamber music world. She performed the Haydn Quartet Op. 77, No. 1 with Arnold Steinhardt (Guarneri Quartet), then Villa-Lobos Quartet No. 6 with Lucy Chapman (formerly of the Muir Quartet), and finally Beethoven Quartet Op. 59, No. 2 with Marcy Rosen (Mendelssohn String Quartet). Celeste wrote of her experience, ‘The Beethoven performance was the most memorable for me because we worked on that piece from the first week of the summer, and really clicked as a group. Also, supposedly it was the first time in 46 years that that piece had been performed in Marlboro, so it felt incredibly special, getting to share it with that audience’."

The newsletter also conducted a brief Q&A with Celeste:

Tell us something most people don't know about you: "I think I have a song to go along with every occasion. My life is a Broadway musical."

What kind of music do you listen to when you're not listening to classical music? "I have terrible taste in music. My most recent obsession is with American Idol. I love any kind of music to which I can sing or dance. Or both!"

Finish this sentence: If I were not going to be a professional violinist, I would like to earn my living as....."A star on Broadway! I possess neither the ability to act nor the ability to sing, but a girl can dream..."

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Violinist Samuel Thompson wrote to let me know he is profiled in the September issue of International Musician, the monthly magazine of the American Federation of Musicians. The article’s focus is on the continuing efforts to rebuild New Orleans’ musical scene, and that much more still needs to be done.

Congratulations, Sam!

Musician News

Violinist Assia Dulgerska has been appointed assistant concertmaster of the Houston Symphony. Kiji Joh, second violin, and Haeri Ju, cello, are this year’s other new string hires.

Violinists Joseph D. Smith and Rachel Frankenfeld joined the Austin Symphony Orchestra for 2007-08. Violist Ames Asbell has also joined the orchestra.

Violinists Hyun Ok (Michelle) Kang and Sherry Hong, have been hired by the Indianapolis Symphony. Kang is a Seoul-born graduate of The Juilliard School, while Hong was most recently a member of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra.Joy Fellows has been named associate principal viola.

The Colburn School in Los Angeles has announced the appointment of the Calder Quartet to its Conservatory Division faculty. The quartet consists of Benjamin Jacobson and Andrew Bulbrook, violin; Jonathan Moerschel, viola; and Eric Beyers, cello.

9/27/07 – More from IVCI: 2006 Gold Medalist Augustin Hadelich will solo with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto.

9/12/07 - French-born violinist Jacques Israelievitch is stepping down as the concertmaster for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra after 20 years at the post, reports the CBC. "I've been considering retiring from orchestra life for a while. The end of my 20th season with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra seems to be the perfect time, being the longest concertmaster tenure in the orchestra's history," he says."I need more free time to pursue all the other musical activities that I love: conducting, solo and chamber music playing, teaching and recording."

Orchestra News

Music in the Mountains (Durango, Colo.) has announced the appointment of Guillermo Figueroa as music director and conductor. Also an accomplished violinist, Figueroa was for ten years was concertmaster of the New York City Ballet, but most recently has been music director of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra (ongoing) and the Puerto Rico Symphony (just completed).

9/18/07 - The New York Philharmonic’s gala opening-night concert will be broadcast on Live From Lincoln Center. In addition, the program will be shown on a huge screen in Lincoln Center’s Josie Robertson Plaza, free of charge. The all-Dvorák program will be conducted by Music Director Lorin Maazel and feature cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

9/12/07 – The Houston Chronicle discusses the Houston Symphony's "batch of 33 trading cards introduced as part of a promotion this summer at the symphony's outdoor concerts. ... Like baseball cards, the goal of the symphony cards is to introduce the players to the fans, or audience members as they are called in the halls that serve neither hot dogs nor Cracker Jack. But the idea remains the same: Create loyalty." The cards may not bring the musicians fame, "but the cards shine a spotlight on players who often seem hidden in a sea of black and white, said oboe player Colin Gatwood." They may also have the same inspirational effect on young musicians that baseball cards do on young athletes, suggests Gatwood.

9/5/07 - According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, "the Haddonfield Symphony is rechristened Symphony in C. With a core audience in Cherry Hill [N.J.], growing interest from Philadelphia and a home concert hall at Rutgers University in Camden [N.J], orchestra officials are engineering an identity change that consigns to history geographic allegiances to Haddonfield." Stearns quotes Rossen Milanov, the orchestra's music director since 2000: "This started a few years ago when we realized the symphony isn't connected to one town ... C major is the key of optimism, brightness and light, things associated with our performances with young people." This comes at the same time as other changes, including a new shuttle bus service designed to address safety issues in Camden as well as a new radio partnership. "[Orchestra President Trevor] Orthmann noted that funding potential was one motivation for Symphony in C's new name. The neighborhood-minded orchestra holds summer music camps for Camden high school students and invites them to dress rehearsals, but the neighborhood feel of the old name was a minus for corporate and foundation fund-raising, he said."

9/5/07 – The St. Petersburg Times reports "Andrew Grams will be resident conductor of the Florida Orchestra for the 2007-08 season. Grams spent the past three seasons as assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra through the American Symphony Orchestra League's [American] Conducting Fellows Program ... Grams, 30, a Maryland native, is a violinist as well as conductor. He received a bachelor of music degree in violin performance from the Juilliard School in 1999. He was a member of the New York City Ballet Orchestra in 1998-2004 and has played with other orchestras, including The Cleveland Orchestra. He received a conducting degree from the Curtis Institute of Music in 2003.”

"A star on Broadway! I possess neither the ability to act nor the ability to sing, but a girl can dream..."

Coming from someone who studies at an institution that has the best Music Theatre training in Australia, I can say the following.Music Theatre kids can't sing as well as opera students, can't dance as well as dance students, and can't act as well as the actors... yet because they do all three, they get the most publicity... go figure...